1) Heat oil. Add onions and all spices including 1 tsp salt and pepper. Saute for 3 minutes.. This toasts the spices. Also, a culinary fact (and my nonna also always said this) is that you need the salt and pepper from the beginning. This is how you bloom the flavors. You will adjust seasoning at the end also, but you always need to have some at the start.

2) Add garlic. Saute for 2 minutes. Add lentil and the remaining veggies (and protein if you want). Keep stirring. This is browning, toasting and coating. Flavors are getting to know each other. House is warming. Digestive juices are flowing!!! Do this at medium heat for about 5-10 minutes.

3) Add stock. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 45-60 minutes until everything is cooked. Adjust flavors. Add chopped parsley if you have it.

Woah woah woah! Ok ok…Wait a minute! Take it down! Calm down. You’re just going to get yourself sick and twisted up in a knot again.

Is this how you felt? I know I did! After years of not knowing why you didn’t feel good. Depressed? Tired? Bloated? Anemic? Joint pain? The list goes on and on. They diagnosed you with Celiac disease. Fibromyalgia. I.B.S.. Lactose intolerance. Again, on and on! Well help is here. Dr. Candida and her Pdx blog designed to help you learn how to eat and enjoy the food you’re eating! I will offer reviews about various cafes, restaurants and products around the country. I will also offer some of my own helpful hints and recipes. Using my culinary arts and naturopathic degrees, I am compiling great support for us all. Read more if you’d like to hear my own personal story.

I was diagnosed in 2002 by a medical doctor with gluten sensitivity. He said, “Good luck with this because gluten is in everything.” At this time, options were limited in this country. I had been working as a chef for many years at this time and had just discontinued working as a pastry chef in a bakery I co-owned. It was as if my body knew it was safe to finally reveal a cause of its dis-ease. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. How was I going to eat? Bake? Cook? My Italian heritage is very gluten full and it’s delicious. I immediately started to mourn, lost weight and vitality. A passion in my life was gone and I didn’t know how to grow with this new information.

Often with gluten sensitivity, other foods such as dairy, sugar and eggs can also be causing inflammation. As I eliminated these foods, I realized how toxic they were to my very sensitive digestive system. When I would eliminate a food for a month then have a “party day” with each food separately to see if you react to that one food, I would immediately react. (this is a very common method of “testing” with naturopaths) ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! More limitations. More restrictions. More information completely altering my world as I knew it. I had already been battling eating disorders since I was a teenager. This news added another layer that would further increase and deepen the disorder.

With the support of my wonderful naturopath, I was encouraged to see this as an exciting, new challenge. A new way of eating, baking and cooking that could nourish and heal the body. Now that I am a nauropath myself I have a volumes of recipes and nutritional information to offer. Stay tuned!